TROUBL

It’s funny how quickly things change. Three weeks ago, the leaders in most power rankings were the Patriots, the Colts, the Chargers, the Vikings, the Cowboys, the Jaguars, the Seahawks, the Steelers… Arizona and Carolina were hovering around the middle, and nobody expected anything of Denver or Buffalo. But that was three weeks ago. Now the list-toppers have a combined seven wins and eight losses, with the Cowboys up against a powerhouse Eagles team just after this column’s deadline… Meanwhile, the batch of losers listed above are all undefeated, and there’s no reason to expect that any of them are going to fall soon. Three weeks is forever, especially when you’re going from the theoretical to the very real.

Three weeks ago, Sarah Palin was the subject of nothing more than bland speculation from a handful of political nerds who thought it’d be so cool to have someone people might want to sleep with on both parties’ tickets.

This is life in 2008, moving faster and faster than it ever did before. Read this column in four years and you’ll be laughing about how slow things were by comparison, but that only proves the point—things go quickly, and they don’t slow down. Ever. Trying to have expectations on what’s going to happen six weeks from now based on what you think you see today is only going to lead to people looking foolish.

Don’t take my word for it. Ask anybody in Minnesota who was hoping to see Adrian Peterson rush for three hundred yards a week over defenses that had no say in the matter. Ask Chargers fans who thought it’d be easy to shed the perennial also-ran status from day one. Ask a Panthers fan who had no reason to suspect that a team without Steve Smith and relying on a rookie running back and an elderly Muhsin Muhammad had a prayer of a 2-0 start. Talking about what will happen makes you sound goofy sometimes, like an aged goth in New Orleans who fucked Marilyn Manson one time in 1997 and refers to him as Brian whenever she works that tidbit into a casual conversation now. You have to assume a familiarity you haven’t earned, and life is unpredictable. And that’s doubly-true in an election year.

[speaking of unpredictable] How about a Tom Brady-less NFL? Two games in now, the Patriots still look good out there, but if you hate them as passionately as I do, this is the worst of all possible worlds. If they win, they’re marked as true fighters, able to weather the loss of one of the biggest stars the game’s ever known and emerge once again victorious. If they lose, well, hell- they didn’t have their star, who can blame them? It’s a terrible dilemma for those of us committed to seeing the Patriots crumble this year. I wanted them to suffer severe losses that would render them impotent as a football team, but not like this.

Putting them into a position where they can be a great example of the power of the human spirit to triumph over adversity is a sick joke, and I am not laughing. Sports is narrative, and a single torn ligament in one guy’s knee is not enough to turn the league’s villain into a hero. And if they lose, what’s the point? It’d be like watching the Joker get hit by a bus in the middle of the second act of The Dark Knight. Where’s the drama?

Mostly I hate the Patriots because I think it’s every American’s duty to do so. They’re a team incapable of inspiring sympathy. In the narrative of the NFL, they are the great villains. They’re a team led by a pretty-boy jock who abandoned his girlfriend for a supermodel when she got pregnant, supported by a star wide receiver who never seemed all that interested in playing the game until he hooked up with a sure winner, coached by a smug dickhead whose had to fend off multiple accusations of cheating. Throw into the heap a bunch of aging linebackers with a “get off my lawn” temperament that makes John McCain look positively youthful, and you have a team it’s easy to root against. I will never understand New England Patriots fans who weren’t born in Foxboro, Massachusetts proper. And the calculus doesn’t change much just because Brady’s out of the picture. Like they’ve been saying all week- you can put lipstick on a pig…

[oh, no, here we go] So, Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” line has been pretty thoroughly discussed, and y’all have probably made up your own minds. Odds are you’re rational folks and haven’t had to contort your brains into weird positions to make an entire paragraph of words that didn’t feature a single mention of Sarah Palin end with a diss thrown her way, but if not- hell, read anyone else on the subject and let them convince you. I’m not going to argue that people need to be less vigilant when it comes to noticing and pointing out sexism in American culture. I watch football every Sunday, same as you, and you can see it in its more subtle strains in every commercial on television, or in the implied “bitch must be crazy” that follows the women who find themselves in conflicts with NFL stars like Brady or Brian Urlacher or Matt Leinart.

Sarah Palin is susceptible to the same form of subtle sexism, but it won’t come in the form of a pig-whistle attack from Barack Obama. It’ll come from the same people who can’t stand the idea of a woman impeding the success of an on-field hero. The same media that is happy to imply that Bridget Moynihan and Brynn Cameron and Tyna Robertson are crazy whores will happily turn on Sarah Palin, too, if they give her a reason.

The fact that it hasn’t happened yet is mostly due to her role as the vice-presidential nominee. She won’t find herself subjected to the same sort of sexism that hamstrung Hillary Clinton because she’s running for a supporting role to a man, and we know how to process that. It’ll only become apparent if she starts to interfere with her campaign. Then, all of the same people who complained that Obama was talking about her with the “lipstick on a pig” line will unleash their own virulent sexism. If she says something profoundly stupid or nutty in the next six weeks—and that’s certainly a possibility- wait for her defenders to launch into a fierce burst of invective against her for being a crazy, unqualified, shrill woman without a lick of common sense. The second she steps off the script, she’s finished.

Women are allowed to fully support men in starring roles. They’re allowed to look pretty and talk tough and be smart, but they can’t get in the way. Remember, nobody had a problem with Jessica Simpson until Tony Romo started blowing big games…

And if the woman in question demonstrates any sexual power? You get over 4,000 hits if you google tony romo pussywhipped”. If Sarah Palin’s got an ex-boyfriend out there somewhere with an envelope full of sexy lingerie pictures, or if the article in the Enquirer turns out to be true, you can prepare for a wave of sexism that’ll make “lipstick on a pig” seem laughable. The full-on whore of babylon outcry will make anything John Edwards or Elliott Spitzer faced downright tame in comparison. The same culture that our game takes place in, and which is so defensive of our on-field heroes, is the one that would be happy to see a woman punished for things we’d never blame a man for. You can hate Sarah Palin more than I hate Tom Brady, and still find that lamentable.

And that’s why life is especially unpredictable in an election year. Who the hell knows what the next few weeks have to offer? By Election Day, the Patriots could be 2-6, and the Arizona Cardinals undefeated. John McCain could have replaced Sarah Palin on the ticket with Tim Pawlenty, and Barack Obama could be up forty points in the polls. Life moves faster than ever, and there’s no reason to suspect it’s going to slow down now.